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Keeping It Zany in a Losing Year

An image from a video hosted by the Cincinnati Bearcats, who celebrated victories with skits during on-field interviews.Credit
Cincinnati Bearcats

Baseball’s postgame ritual of interrupting an on-field interview with a shaving cream pie to the face is a comforting one, sometimes even for the recipient. It neatly punctures the me-first notion so prevalent in sports; even a player’s moment in the spotlight can be taken from him by his teammates. Watching a utility player slap some shaving cream in the face of a $15-million-a-year All-Star is the kind of humility delivery system most people can really get behind.

The Cincinnati Bearcats became a viral sensation on YouTube last week with a greatest hits video of even more elaborate postgame photo bombs — several of them involving more than a half-dozen players and props. The on-camera distractions seemed less about harassing the interviewee and more about keeping the team together during a mediocre season. (The Bearcats finished 24-32, but were just 6-18 in the Big East Conference, prompting the university to relieve the longtime coach Brian Cleary of his duties before the season’s final weekend.)

In their world, the shaving cream pie is passé, which says more about them than a game program ever could.

The Bearcats celebrate victories as if they are channeling Monty Python. Their shaggy performances, which began this season, are silly and exuberant and remind fans that baseball is, at its core, a children’s game played by adults. Only in this instance, goofy college athletes with overactive imaginations are playing the adults.

The skits are largely the brainchild of infielder Ryan Quinn, the team’s designated hitter and a Sparta, N.J., native, who hit .299 this season.

“Oh, he’s most certainly the ringleader,” said the Cincinnati play-by-play announcer Scott Waldrop, who often plays the straight man, attempting to conduct a serious on-camera interview with a player while Bearcats, say, pretend to joust in the background. “I always know they are up to something back there, but I am trying hard to focus on the interview.”

Pitcher Connor Walsh said: “It’s horrible. When I was getting interviewed after a game, I saw Quinn in my peripheral vision on a chair getting carried by the guys. It’s tough just to keep a straight face.”

That skit is referred to as “Emperor,” where Quinn sits regally atop a chair as a handful of teammates fan him with rakes. His other greatest hit is “Pig on a Pole,” where his hands and feet are wrapped around a long stake so he is swinging underneath it while he is carried across the screen. All that is missing is an apple in his mouth.

“It started with me walking by the camera and smiling after a win,” Quinn said. “And I got some laughs from that. The following game we were playing Ohio State and we won, and I told our first baseman to put me on his shoulders and walk by the camera. And that kind of blew up on Twitter that night.”

Photo

Another image from a video of a postgame skit by the Bearcats.Credit
Cincinnati Bearcats

Such tomfoolery is not without risks. In 2010, the reigning National League rookie of the year Chris Coghlan of the Marlins tore the meniscus in his left knee while delivering a shaving cream pie to his teammate Wes Helms’s face. After his stint on the disabled list, Coghlan’s knee recovered, but his career has yet to follow suit. Coghlan spent part of last season in the minors and is no longer an everyday player. The Bearcats have had scares, too.

“We were jousting with the catchers and one of the kids’ legs must have given out, and he just dropped me,” Quinn said. “Thankfully, I didn’t hurt anything, but it was pretty close.”

So far, though, the Bearcats have not lost perspective. Celebrating wins is one thing; not winning is quite another. And they make sure to limit their cavorting to victorious moments.

“We’re really focused on the wins and losses,” Walsh said. “But baseball is a game of ups and downs, and being able to let loose and have fun is important, too.”

While there is some planning involved, Quinn normally sketches out the skit in the five minutes between the end of the game and the interview. He and his teammates then just wing it.

“After we win the game, he’ll kind of decide the plot and pick the cast,” infielder J. P. Jackson said. “We don’t rehearse. We run around, grab some props. Come up with the idea and just go for it.”

With the current virtual acclaim, and a growing legion of fans on social media, the players will be practicing more than their swings this summer. Quinn will undoubtedly be looking to help Cincinnati avoid the dreaded sophomore jinx that haunts both athletes and performers.

“I was just thinking, now they have an entire off-season to plan and now that they know they have an audience, they are going to really raise the bar next year,” said Waldrop, the announcer. “I’m sure he’ll be ready.”

Quinn, who will be a senior, promised as much.

“We have got to step it up, to give the people what they want,” he said. “I’m going to have to spend some time this off-season and do some serious thinking.”

Or, at the very least, some nonserious thinking.

A version of this article appears in print on May 29, 2013, on page B14 of the New York edition with the headline: Keeping It Zany In a Losing Year. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe